– the report by Roberta Angelilli, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA (COM(2010)0094 – C7-0088/2010 – 2010/0064(COD)) (A7-0294/2011), and

– the oral question to the Commission on information on the implementation of measures envisaged in the European Union Programme on children’s rights by Roberta Angelilli, Simon Busuttil, Manfred Weber and Salvatore Iacolino, on behalf of the PPE Group (O-000231/2011 – B7-0627/2011), and

Cecilia Malmström, Member of the Commission. − Mr President, I will start first with the oral question. As you know, with the Lisbon Treaty the protection of the rights of the child was introduced as an objective of the European Union and this is made legally binding by the Charter of Fundamental Rights that guarantees the protection of the rights of the child. Now we must of course step up the efforts and put some action behind these beautiful words – within the limits of EU competences – with concrete actions and concrete results. That is the aim of the EU Agenda for the Rights of the Child that the Commission adopted in February this year.

The agenda pointed out something that you have raised in your questions; the significant lack of reliable, comparable and official data on the situation of children in the Member States. This is a serious problem for the development and implementation of a genuine evidence-based policy. The Fundamental Rights Agency has carried out important work in finding indicators to help develop policies in the area of the rights of the child. Thanks to the financial support of Parliament, the Commission will also be able to carry out a pilot project on developing child rights data collection for developing evidence-based policies. I am really grateful that the Members of this House share the interest of data collection, for instance in children’s effective access to justice. With the pilot project I mentioned, we will be able to have reliable and comparable data on children’s effective access to justice from all the Member States by 2013.

It is clear, of course, that if we want our policies to be effective we need money. There is no specific budget line called ‘policies for children’. But there are various programmes within our budget that provide funding aimed at children. We have, for instance, the Daphne programme with a budget of EUR 117 million providing financial support to NGOs and local authorities to combat violence against children. We have the Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Programme providing funding on children’s rights issues to national authorities and NGOs; and we have the Safer Internet Programme with a total budget of EUR 55 million aimed to empower and protect children online by awareness-raising initiatives.

Under the new multiannual framework programme 2014-2020, we will continue to fund policies to deliver child-friendly justice, to protect children and safeguard their rights. With a similar amount of funding as in the current generation of programmes, we will ensure a more efficient delivery for these actions and this will be achieved through streamlined programmes and a better response to the needs.

The EU agenda emphasised the importance of access to education and care services for small children. In the communication on early childhood education and care adopted earlier this year, the Commission set out key policy issues to be addressed at the European level to improve the accessibility and quality of service from birth to compulsory school age.

In the Council conclusions of May, the Member States were invited to analyse the current situation, to reinforce measures to improve access to high quality services and to invest in childhood education and care. The Commission will set up a thematic working group of policy-makers, academics and practitioners in early childhood education and care.

In the area of judicial cooperation in civil matters the Commission carefully monitors the correct application of the Brussels IIa regulation which provides for common rules on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgment in matters of parental responsibility and cross-border parental child abduction.

The correct implementation of the Hague Convention on Child Abduction is critical here. The aim of the Convention, as you know, is to restore the status quo by means of the prompt return of wrongfully removed or retained children through cooperation between central authorities. In external relations the Commission actively promotes the signature of this Convention to other countries. Child abduction and missing children is a growing and a common problem, and unfortunately it will not go away. We need to find tools to deal with this; and tools for Member States to be able to cooperate with each other in cases where a child is abducted.

We have child alert systems designed especially for cases of extremely worrying disappearances of children, such as child abduction. To date a child alert system works in ten Member States and the Commission is committed to work with the other Member States so they are also rolled out in the remaining seventeen. We have been encouraging Member States to set up their own national child alert system and we support them operationally through the exchange of best practices, and financially in order to make sure that they are operational on a cross-border basis.

A few years ago, with the financial support of Parliament, the Commission launched a pilot project aiming to introduce a child alert mechanism across Europe. This project consisted either of establishing a child alert system in those Member States or/and improving cooperation mechanisms amongst neighbouring countries. This is crucial and there are some good practices. For instance, we have the Lutte anti-disparitions d’enfants between France, Belgium and Britain that respects national sovereignty but has laid down procedures and provides the possibility to share information. Some Member States have not yet realised the values of these systems and my colleague Vice-President Reding has called on Member States who have not yet introduced child alert mechanisms to take all necessary steps for their implementation without delay.

Child alert is not the only tool. We also have the 116000 hotline in Europe designed to report missing children and offer support to the families of missing children. Sixteen Member States have signed up to this and we are of course making every effort for the rest of them to join as well. We will continue to support and encourage Member States, within the powers of the Commission, to ensure protection and promotion of the rights of the child.

Passing now to the Angelilli report; sexual crimes committed by adults towards children is the most horrendous form of criminality. As adults, we cannot and we should not accept this, and the report today is the proof that we will not accept it. It is a delicate compromise with a lot of people involved and I would like to pay tribute to the work of Ms Angelilli and her collaborators, the shadows, the coordinators and the Polish and Hungarian Presidencies. It is a compromise, and it is true that the Commission would have liked to go further in criminalising child sex tourism by including EU habitual residents as well as nationals in the extra-territorial jurisdiction against abusing children abroad. The compromise has considerably strengthened the proposal by criminalising child grooming more extensively and adding important provisions on victim protection, providing the right for employers to ask for information on criminal records and providing for awareness-raising and training of professionals as preventive measures. This directive equips us much better than the current one from 2004.

On the prosecution of offenders there are 20 criminal offences, including new trends like grooming online, webcam abuse, web viewing child pornography; different levels of penalties from one year to ten years’ imprisonment; the elimination of hurdles that may be set by statutes of limitation or confidentiality rules and special police units specially equipped to identify child victims – which will be a very important investigative tool.

On child tourism, there is extra-territorial jurisdiction for nationals; the removal of procedural hurdles and the prohibition of organising travel or advertising opportunities to abuse children. There is extensive assistance to protect the victims with an individual assessment of each child. There will be risk assessment for convicted offenders and intervention programmes as well as education, awareness training, etc. to detect child sexual abuse.

On images of sexual abuse of children on the Internet, we have agreement on the removal of web pages hosted in Member States, intended action to have them removed abroad and the possibility of blocking, subject to transparent procedures.

Again, I would like to thank the Parliament for your true commitment to this. It has been a difficult journey but I think we have skilfully navigated in this complicated file. With this we show that our collective aim is to protect children and we do not tolerate children being used as objects to satisfy the sexual needs or greed of adults. Thank you very much for your hard work in this.

Marina Yannakoudakis, rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality. − Mr President, we all share the responsibility of protecting children, and I congratulate the rapporteur on a report that is both sensitive and firm in its approach.

I led on this report for the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and believe our support of the Commissioner’s ‘three P’ approach – prevention, protection and prosecution – strengthens this report. Prevention is always the best form of protection. I am pleased that the report has included in it consideration of implementing an EU-wide telephone helpline.

In the United Kingdom we have a successful helpline run by a charity called the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. The helpline offers support and counselling to prevent sexual abuse and protect children at risk. One of the most controversial challenges addressed in this report was the blocking and deletion of child pornography content online. I support the deletion of images and subsequent investigation by the police. Everything should be done to stop people accessing illegal images, including blocking.

We need to ensure a zero-tolerance approach to child pornography, and we need to take a child-centred approach. A society that protects the vulnerable, such as children, is one we must strive for.

Timothy Kirkhope, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Mr President, in an era of rapid and apparently effortless global communications, particularly through the Internet but also now through mobile phones and iPads and the like, it is vital that we in the European Parliament work ever harder to protect children and young adults from the continuing threat of sexual and violent abuse.

We as lawmakers have a responsibility to make laws and policies which protect and promote the interests of the most vulnerable in our society. Children, for instance, should not be viewed merely as small adults. They are not always capable of asking for help or even knowing when they have been wronged. It is therefore the adults in society who must take responsibility for these children and be their strong and robust advocates.

I have been working on this issue for many years, first as a minister in the UK Home Office involved in the UN Convention on Children’s Rights, the meeting in Stockholm in Sweden in 1996 and then as rapporteur on a previous European parliamentary report back in 2000 to combat child pornography on the Internet. I called for stronger preventive measures to tackle this menace and I asked Member States to work with each other and the law enforcement agencies and units such as Europol to make sure that illegal websites were closed down and perpetrators brought to justice.

It was a very similar backbone to Ms Angelilli’s report. It concerns me that, despite the legislative, financial and specialist input into this problem, millions of children across the EU are still at risk today. The violation of children’s rights must be stopped, so I am pleased that the ECR Group and my government in the UK are supportive of the aims and proposals of this directive, which goes even further than what I proposed in 2000.

I am grateful for the work which Ms Angelilli and others from the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and the Committee on Culture and Education have done in this area. I particularly welcome proposals to introduce a new offensive aiming to criminalise online grooming. I am also pleased this report advocates a more robust approach to criminal checks on professionals who want to work with children and encourages Member States to take the necessary steps to ensure that children who report abuse from within their own family are protected.

I would like to conclude my remarks by referring to the comments made by the British Prime Minister recently at an event in London last week which I attended. He reiterated that child trafficking and child exploitation were inexcusable and had to be stopped. Although this dossier finally does not deal specifically with child trafficking, I believe there is a political will at UK and EU level to continue our efforts to work on behalf of children and act as their advocates; they are our future, they are entitled to grow up free of these threats.

Jean Lambert, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, my group would also like to thank the rapporteur and the shadows for the good cooperation in difficult negotiations. Whilst we certainly welcome the offence of online grooming being created, I must admit we found the attitude of Council in not wanting to incorporate grooming in all senses into this on the grounds that it already exists in national legislation a little surprising, given that many of the other offences here also exist in national legislation.

My group, too, welcomes the inclusion for the first time in EU legislation of sex tourism related to children and the jurisdiction over nationals travelling for the purposes of child abuse, but we also agree with the Commission that it is a pity that we have not been able to find a solution on those enjoying habitual residence.

We also welcome the recognition of the need to deal with the associated advertising and facilitation of such travel. We, too, welcome the measures to deal with the exclusion of convicted offenders from employment involving direct and regular contact with children. We welcome the move to make it possible for employers to request information about the potential employees for professional or organised voluntary activities with children, according to national law.

Article 25 relating to websites was particularly difficult to negotiate, as has already been said, and obviously the priority must be to protect children. However, there are legitimate concerns that measures employed for this crucial purpose become co-opted for other purposes of state control. The solution reached in this directive is important and has the full support of my group.

We also welcome support for survivors knowing the tragic consequences that such abuse has for so many children throughout their lives. Finally, we welcome the recognition, too, of the difference for consensual sexual activity between young people, whom we do not want to criminalise for behaviour that may be foolish but which is certainly not exploitative.

Diane Dodds (NI). - Mr President, I welcome this report into the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. In Northern Ireland, my constituency, recent figures show us that 18% of all children on the child protection register are in a category that includes sexual abuse. It is therefore vital that we enhance the protection of these children, especially in the face of new challenges posed by global communications which transcend national boundaries. With more children having access to the Internet and social networking sites, it has become easier for sex offenders to prey on their young victims.

In the United Kingdom Internet service providers such as BT are active in helping to combat the issue of online child exploitation by voluntarily blocking inappropriate sites. Although this is a step in the right direction, it must be highlighted that many of these sites are hosted outside of Member States and cannot be taken down. I would like to see agreements in place that target such websites on a global scale. This is an area where Member States can, and must, act for the common good.

Whilst we discuss the current threats facing children as a result of ever-evolving channels of communication, I would also like to remind this House of the many children, now adults, across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, who have been the victims of horrific historical, clerical and institutional child abuse stretching back many decades. Just last month an inquiry into historical institutional abuse was launched in Northern Ireland. For these victims of child sex abuse, their issues are as real today as when they first happened, and we must support them too.

Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Madam President, the EU has a good story to tell about its work to protect children. Earlier this year in the strengthened law on trafficking, we included a requirement to appoint a guardian for unaccompanied child victims which hopefully will help to stop their disappearance from care back into the clutches of the trafficking gangs.

The new directive will mean child sex abusers and porn merchants would face a greater prospect of life behind bars. MEPs rightly fought for tougher sentences. It is also very important that we successively insisted on the ability to prosecute EU citizens who go abroad as sex tourists. I heard horror stories on this on a visit to Cambodia a few years ago.

Among many other initiatives I would mention mutual recognition of disqualifications from working with children, cross-border exchange of criminal records – so that abusers can be tracked when they move – and particular protection of child victims and suspects in the criminal justice system.

However, I would like to say a word about something Commissioner Malmström mentioned, which was the 116000 number for missing children. It is still not operational in, I think, 11 Member States, although that was required by last May. In addition there are problems with using mobile phones outside one’s home country because there is a dispute about who picks up the roaming charges. I would urge Commissioner Malmström to get to grips with this problem and talk to the mobile phone companies – in fact all the phone companies – and try and resolve this problem of the roaming charge because, until that is sorted out, we will not have a universal hotline for missing children.

Nick Griffin (NI). - Madam President, my constituency is suffering a hidden epidemic of sexual grooming so I appreciate the efforts of all those involved in producing this report. The grassroots campaigners for the protection of children tell me that the report misses the most important target. To concentrate on online pornography while relegating real-life child sexual abuse to a page 33 annex is to worry about a speck in one eye while ignoring a splintered plank in another.

Real-life abuse is described in the report as ‘offline grooming’. Such terminology is an insult to the victims and their families. It is not offline: it is on our streets. It is not a matter of images: it is a matter of real-life degradation, gang rape, and even murder. But because a disproportionately large number of street groomers are Muslims, politically-correct censorship prevents the issue from being properly discussed. Because of this deliberate downplaying of the problem, on-street grooming is not even a specific offence in many countries. As a result, the crime remains statistically virtually invisible. This undermines attempts to secure justice for the victims, effective responses from the authorities, and proper penalties for the perpetrators.

In my own constituency, the family of Charlene Downs still waits for justice following the botched prosecution of those arrested over the grooming, rape and murder of their little girl in 2003. Despite their belief that 60 other girls had been groomed by the same gang, and that Charlene’s body was disposed of in kebabs, the police regarded their report as too sensitive to publish. The consequences of such cowardice became clear four years later when 15-year-old Paige Chivers went missing, believed murdered, at the hands of the same gang.

Of course, not all police officers are politically correct cowards, any more than all Muslims are groomers. The vast majority are as sickened by these things as we are, but the playing down of the problem in reports like this aids the criminal minority and leaves new victims at risk. The more serious crimes should get the attention.

Emma McClarkin (ECR). - Madam President, child abuse material has been rapidly increasing in prevalence on the Internet and the severity of such content is worsening. Indeed the statistics reveal a truly harrowing story. In the UK, for example, BT Internet alone estimates that their blocking technology prevents 40 000 attempts to access known child abuse websites every single day. That is over 14 million attempts every year.

That is why I am pleased to see the Commission’s proposal for a directive on combating this issue. Sadly there is one aspect which, as well as causing significant controversy, provoked an emotionally charged debate; this of course was the issue of blocking versus deletion. No-one is suggesting that blocking is 100% effective. However blocking is a quick and crucial short-term disruption tactic. Quite simply, it is my belief that the protection of our children and the apprehension of the criminals who perpetrate these abuses should take precedence over freedom of the Internet and the human rights of those sick individuals who view this material. I am sure that the majority of European citizens will share this belief.

The sad truth is that, whilst action on the online sphere is valuable, the best way to prevent child abuse images circulating on the Internet is to stop child abuse – full stop! I would like to ask Members of this House to disregard the implications inferred from the statement from Mr Griffin.

Anna Maria Corazza Bildt (PPE). - Madam President, a crime is a crime, regardless of whether it is committed physically or on the Net. Criminal gangs commit organised crimes, regardless of the means they use. Kids deserve our full protection and deserve to feel protected. That is why I have been so committed to this work. They have the right to live in freedom and security, and they also have the right to integrity on the Net. I am glad that we have finally been able to agree on adopting common, legislative, concrete measures to truly combat child abuse – as is called for, by the way, in the Stockholm Programme. There is strong support to enhance prevention, protection and prosecution, and to protect the victim throughout the European Union. Child pornography images, grooming and sex tourism are finally criminalised.

I fully embrace freedom of expression and freedom on the Internet, but that is not the issue now. What we are voting on is the protection of innocent children from brutality on the Internet, not on limiting the Net. It is not about blocking the Internet, it is about blocking images that are illegal on the Internet. It is not about ideology or censorship, it is about violence and exploitation that can traumatise children for the rest of their lives. With this directive I believe we will succeed in strengthening the means to combat child abuse without creating a Big Brother society.

Member States will have to remove pornographic content on a webpage hosted in their territory or block such content if the server is in a third country and removal is not possible. But the directive also provides for transparent procedures and adequate safeguards. We should, of course, also engage in dialogue with the industry and service providers to make the best use of information technology, and I also call on the IT industry to continue to play its role and be responsible.

In this directive and in the European Union Programme for Children we are finally putting children at the centre of European policy and creating a culture of zero tolerance. I would just like to finish with a call to nominate, in every committee in Parliament, an MEP responsible for children’s rights so that we can really unite forces and stand up for children in all our work.

Phil Prendergast (S&D). - Madam President, the need to adapt our child protection policies to effectively tackle the realities of the 21st century is undeniable. In particular, the possibility of introducing technical blocking mechanisms to prevent individuals from gaining access to online sexually exploitative content depicting a child is a welcome development.

It has been said of this policy that it is unproven and that it potentially undermines freedom of information and communication on the Internet. Colleagues, in law and in reality there is no such thing as an absolute right or freedom, but instead each freedom is qualified and must be balanced against opposing freedoms. The right to freely communicate does not preclude the need to protect the fundamental rights of children and minors.

Secondly, I support this proposal’s aim to legislate for victims’ rights. This proposal puts victims’ rights on a statutory footing and in general encompasses the provision of adequate support to victims before, during and after a criminal investigation.

Seán Kelly (PPE). - Madam President, any abuse of children is a heinous, appalling reprehensible act. It has gone on for years but it has only recently come into the public domain and perhaps no place more than my own country, where reports have highlighted the abuse of children by clergy and members of religious orders. As a result certain actions have been taken to protect children and to deal with the offenders.

Indeed, I am pleased to say that the government is introducing a referendum to the constitution to further guarantee the rights of the child. It is good that we are discussing this here today, because we can give it a broader dimension, particularly in terms of bringing legislation onto a European-wide basis which can guarantee the rights of children and protect them in the future.

We also need to concentrate on education, and especially in relation to social media which are being used more and more to attract children into situations where they can be abused.

Cecilia Malmström, Member of the Commission. − Madam President, I should like to say thank you very much to all who took part for a most interesting and very important debate. I would like to highlight a few things, because much has been said.

Baroness Ludford asked me about the countries that have not acceded to the hotline number 116000. In the revised Universal Service Directive it says that the Member States should have made every effort to accede to this by 25 May of this year, and still 11 countries have not done so. It also says that the Member States shall inform citizens that it exists and facilitate the operation of services in order to comply with this. It is up to the Member States to choose how they promote the hotline. In order to raise awareness, allow exchanges of best practices and identify practical tools, the Commission is organising best practices meetings and high-level meetings with stakeholders and will continue to do so every year until all countries have made sure that it is operational.

I also had a question from Ms Nedelcheva on the Convention of the Rights of the Child. It is more complicated than it might seem to adhere to this, because the European Union can – as the Members well know – only act within the limits of the competence conferred on it by the Treaties. Moreover, in accordance with the articles in the actual Convention of the Rights of the Child, the instrument is open only to state parties. For these reasons the Commission does not, therefore, envisage acceding to the Convention. However, the EU agenda for the rights of the child reaffirms the importance of the Convention and will do everything to make sure that all EU legislation and proposals are in line with that Convention.

I would also like to highlight something that might be a misunderstanding; I do not wish to open the debate again but want to assure you that nobody has promoted, proposed or envisaged introducing blocking instead of deletion; that has never been an issue.

What we should do – and this is very clear in the Commission proposal, and I am very happy to have the huge support in this House – is ensure that Member States delete at source. This is the only way to combat child pornography on line. We shall delete at source. However, we all know that with the majority of these horrible sites – and I do not know if you have seen them (there are toddlers on these sites) – there are a lot of people making huge amounts of money every time someone sees those babies being abused, and every time someone looks at it they are abused again, again and again.

The majority of these sites are not hosted in the European Union: that is why the Commission proposes that the Member States should block access to the content until it can be removed at source. In this proposal it says that Member States may now do so. Of course, we must also cooperate with the countries which host the majority of these sites, and we are engaged in very active negotiations, talks and collaboration with, for instance, the United States on this – they are moving forward – and also with Russia and other states.

Having said this, I think you, Ms Angelilli, with the massive support and praise you have got in this plenary from the Left to the Right, can be very proud of what you have achieved. We can all be proud: the Council, the Commission, Parliament and yourself, because with this we are providing good tools to prevent, to protect and to prosecute people who commit these offences. We are also sending the very important political signal that sexual abuse of children like this is not acceptable, and this is a clear message from the whole of the European Union. Thank you very much for a very important debate and very important work.

Rovana Plumb (S&D), in writing. – The status of children has been the focus of international attention for a number of years, most notably in the drawing up of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children are also increasingly affected by a whole range of EU policies and legislation. The Commission has made an effort to define a so-called ‘EU agenda on the rights of the child’. However, its communication focuses mainly on legal dimensions, which – although of major importance in their own right – do not take proper account of the critical importance of appropriate socio-economic policies for children. We may not achieve the target of curbing the level of poverty by helping 20 million persons improve their standard of life by 2020, if we do not have a strategic approach on children and children-related components. We should develop and implement an EU Strategy to halve child-poverty by 2020, and break the spiral of poverty in general. We consider necessary to mainstream individual children’s rights in all EU policies, monitoring and evaluating the steps undertaken to end child poverty, identifying and developing priority actions, aiming to enhance data collection and to further develop common indicators at EU level.

Artur Zasada (PPE), in writing. – Protecting the young and innocent of the world is a fundamentally sound human rights choice. Thus, the European Union has continued its efforts to extend its influence worldwide and address the issue of child pornography. Children are without a doubt the future leaders and require the protection of global institutions. Therefore, the legislation being implemented by the EU is determined in its endeavour to protect all children. The European Union has instituted (in brief) the following legislation: sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children, including child pornography, constitute serious violations of fundamental rights, in particular the rights of the child to protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being, as stipulated by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This legislation cannot and will not be taken lightly and represents the protection of the young and innocent citizens of our Union. I strongly support this legislation and stand behind the EU’s decision to further protect the future and innocence of these children as they continue to grow and develop in the fabric of the Christian values of the European Union.